3 Simple Steps to Body Love<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are inundated and have become immune to the societal pressure placed on the everyday woman by the photoshopped images on social media<\/a> and the perfectly posed models who grace the covers of fashion magazines.\u00a0 This unrealistic and unnatural standard of beauty and fitness is everywhere.\u00a0 The pressure to be and look \u2018perfect\u2019 is disheartening when the standard of perfection is not achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though the tide seems to be changing, there are very real body- shaming<\/a> stigmas placed on the average woman. The weight of body imperfections is especially felt by women of the younger generation. To add insult to injury of imperfections, there is the added ever-growing pressure and discourse of life in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was very young, I suffered from feelings of self-hatred from body image issues. At four years old, I bore the \u2018sick\u2019 label because of my type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Let\u2019s remember this was decades before the internet, carb counting, insulin pumps, and blood sugar testing by finger stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was a performer, a dancer, and an overachiever. I lived in a home that was at best chaotic and at worst, unsafe. A 9- year-old girl, growing up in this unstable environment left me susceptible to commercials and print images of supposedly perfect women, it was a recipe for disaster. As a teenager my goal was to weigh 88 pounds. At my highest I weighed 162 pounds. I am 5\u2019 tall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did the compulsive need to have a perfect body manifest itself in me? I literally tried to beat myself thinner, pounding my fists into my stomach. I starved myself, limiting my calorie intake to only 800 calories a day. I exercised compulsively, took laxatives, and used speed, all while injecting insulin every day. I am still not sure how this behavior didn\u2019t kill me, but it did land me in an eating disorder rehab facility prior to my 21st<\/sup> birthday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The underlying problem being, I felt that I didn\u2019t measure up. I wasn\u2019t good enough no matter how hard I tried. When I was a young girl, I didn\u2019t feel loved. Being a professional dancer exacerbated my feelings on not measuring up, adding fuel to the \u2018not good enough\u2019 fire. I still struggle with self-hatred and have a hard time loving myself, let alone allowing someone else to love me. Thoughts are powerful and the thoughts I\u2019ve had about myself well into my 40\u2019s are reflected in my lifelong history of being single.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have been an expert at setting myself up to fail. I often felt like I could never catch up and at times I truly wanted to die. Escape became my primary coping mechanism, glaringly obvious in my move across- country, from New York to Los Angeles at age 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My entire life, I\u2019ve struggled with my failures. Finally, I had to face my life and my heart and simply stop hating myself for being myself. Was that realization quick? Was the journey easy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n